Irish Examiner view: Wishing you a happy AI Christmas
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The starting gun was fired just after Halloween by Aldi and Lidl, whose competitive efforts are not limited to price wars. Both share the same theme — that it is better to give than receive.
Kevin the Carrot does it his way by rescuing the spirit of Christmas, while Lidl’s star is a little girl who donates her present to someone who might need it more, a message which ties into an in-store toy bank promotion.
Both these campaigns were up and running before Simon Harris called the election, and others run the risk of being drowned in the ambient noise of the next few weeks.
There would have been little chance of that with last year’s boisterous musical hit, ‘Festa’, by Andrea Bocelli.
But this year John Lewis has chosen an enigmatic offering, ‘Sonnet’, by The Verve to illustrate an affecting tale about a woman, Sally, who has somehow become estranged from her sister Lauren. Men are nowhere to be seen as she seeks the perfect gift in various scenes which evoke the spirit of Narnia.
The balance between sentimentality and sugar-sweet whimsy can be difficult to achieve. Last year, Amazon Prime produced a four-minute masterpiece featuring three old ladies enjoying a toboggan race to an instrumental version of ‘In My Life’ by The Beatles.
This year the company focuses on generosity of spirit between co-workers who discover that a caretaker has a wonderful voice and encourage him to sing a 1965 classic, ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love’, and a hopeful message for our troubled modern times.
Big hitters such as Waitrose have gone full Tom Wambsgans by hiring Matthew Macfadyen to helm an ambitious two-part whodunnit in which the star interrogates a range of fellow thesps to discover who has stolen the store’s No 1 Red Velvet Bauble Dessert.
Other star turns include a -style singalong with performing oven gloves and scarves (Morrisons); Dawn French stepping into Christmas for M&S; Adjoa Andoh playing Mrs Claus for Boots, and a Tesco mini-drama about a man missing his nan.
Debenhams and Etsy are there to remind us the traditional high street Christmas experience continues to face serious challenges from online, but one of the most significant developments comes from Coca-Cola. The fizzy drinks firm has reworked its Holidays Are Coming campaign, which has been broadcast since 1995, using artificial intelligence (AI).
The original advertisement deployed three 40ft trucks clad in 30,000 lightbulbs. This year it recruited generative AI to save the company time and money and did not hire an actor to play Santa Claus.
Its “exciting venture into AI-generated storytelling demonstrates Coca-Cola’s commitment to embracing innovation, leveraging our collaborations with top creative and technology partners, while staying true to its core values: spreading happiness and creating real magic,” said the company statement, breathlessly.
Sceptics may fear that they will come for the elves next.
There’s no way of knowing whether Donald Trump is a fan of Hollywood action movies, although it is possible to discern various forms of inspiration from them as his choices of senior political aides have emerged over recent days.
Recruitment procedures appear to have been drawn from . Opponents have been so outspoken in their criticism that his selections might have been auditioning for . Several have drawn such opprobrium that they would not appear out of place in .
Choosing a vaccine denier and promoter of quackery, Robert F Kennedy Jr, as US secretary of health and human services reveals a taste in black humour which would not be out of place in the pages of Jonathan Swift and Joseph Heller.
In one 24-hour cycle, the president-in-waiting not only selected Kennedy, but chose Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
Ms Gabbard, who graduated from the Alabama Military Academy and has seen duty in Iraq and the Horn of Africa, is by any definition a complex character. She has supported bills urging the US to drop charges against whistleblower Edward Snowden and proposing the release of Julian Assange.
She supported Joe Biden in the 2020 election campaign before joining the Republican party in October. She is hawkish in support of Israel and lukewarm about backing Ukraine, the first signs of which are becoming apparent. One Democrat senator has, in a flourish worthy of John Le Carre, accused her of being a Russian “asset”.
Mr Gaetz was investigated for sex-trafficking, an allegation he strongly denies, and other accusations of impropriety.
When we add to this roll call other luminaries such as the Fox TV and militant Christian idealogue Peter Hegseth as defense secretary and the recruitment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as external consultants to ginger up government efficiency we can see that there is a pattern emerging.
In German, there is a phrase known as Galgenhumor — the practice of issuing cynical last words before being executed. We know it as gallows humour. It’s often stated that Americans don’t understand irony, but perhaps the 47th president and his inner circle plan to prove everyone wrong.
Given the serious nature of our times, it is important that we cherish those people who are capable of making us laugh and smile.
It is with particular sadness, therefore, that we note the passing of the celebrated Limerick-born comedian and actor, Jon Kenny, who died at the age of 66 in Galway.
He was best known as part of comic duo D’Unbelievables which began to tour the country in the 1980s. He and his friend Pat Shortt created a series of characters who were felt to be archetypal of towns and villages throughout Ireland.
Taoiseach Simon Harris led the tributes: “Jon had the ability that very few people possess, to make his audiences crack up laughing with a glance or a single word.” Tánaiste Micheál Martin described him as “an entertainer to his core”.